The Impact of Mercenaries and Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) on Civil War Severity between 1946 and 2002

The Impact of Mercenaries and Private Military and Security CompaniesPMSCs on Civil War Severity between 1946 and 2002 Ulrich Petersohn University of Liverpool u.petersohn@liverpool.ac.u

The Impact of Mercenaries and Private Military and Security Companies

(PMSCs) on Civil War Severity between 1946 and 2002

Ulrich Petersohn

University of Liverpool u.petersohn@liverpool.ac.uk

Abstract:

Research has long abandoned the view that only states wage war On the contrary,civil war research has produced an impressive body of literature on violent non-state actors Still, a particular group of actors – mercenaries – has been widelyneglected so far, although they have participated in numerous conflicts in the secondhalf of the twentieth century Whether their presence aggravated or rather improvedthe situation is a matter of dispute Some believe that the additional militarycapabilities provided by mercenaries help to end civil wars quickly withoutincreased bloodshed, while others deem mercenaries greedy and bloodthirstycombatants who contribute to making civil wars more brutal, while a third opiniondifferentiates between different types of mercenaries This article will test theimpact of mercenaries on civil war severity The evidence indicates that the presence

of both mercenaries and Private Military and Security Contractors increases itsseverity

For centuries, mercenaries were a common sight on battlefields Alexander the Greatand Napoleon both hired these actors to fight their wars, and even the BritishEmpire employed them to police its colonial possessions (Percy 2007:54-64;Steinhoff 2008:19-20) Mercenaries are fighters who participate in hostilities forpecuniary reward Moreover, they are not a national of a party to the conflict, and arenot integrated into the regular armed forces (Chojnacki et al 2009:5) With theemergence of the modern sovereign state in the nineteenth century, they have beendelegitimized and pushed off the market (Thomson 1994:19) Nevertheless,mercenaries never completely vanished from conflict On the contrary, they haveserved in multiple roles, for example, in the civil wars in Africa in the 1960s and1970s (Musah and Fayemi 2000) More recently the old mercenary breedprofessionalized itself and transformed into corporate entities, so-called PrivateMilitary and Security Companies (PMSCs) providing military and military supportservices (Avant 2005:30;Percy 2007, 7;Singer 2003:45) In total, mercenaries havebeen involved in almost one-third of all civil wars since 1950 (Chojnacki, et al.2009)

Surprisingly, the civil war literature has not paid much attention tomercenary involvement in hostilities One reason may be that the literature hastraditionally focused less on the impact of single actors than on structural variablessuch as regime type, military power, or natural resources (Cunningham et al.2009:571) Likewise, the PMSC/mercenary literature has not yet investigated in-depth the repercussions of mercenary involvement in civil wars, though somepreliminary work has been done on the mercenary-civil war nexus ChristopherKinsey, for instance, has shed light on the reasons why mercenaries are hired in civilwars (Kinsey 2007) Moreover, Sven Chojnacki et al provide an exploration of theconditions under which mercenaries are hired in civil wars (Chojnacki, et al 2009).However, there are only a handful of case studies that investigate the consequences

of PMSC and mercenary involvement (Cleary 2002; Francis 1999;Shearer 1998;Vines 2002)

Even more unsatisfying is the fact that the literature does not agree on theconsequences of PMSC/mercenary involvement Some authors argue that the

presence of these actors aggravates the situation in civil wars The additionalmilitary capabilities obtained by mercenary employment enables the parties tointensify their campaigns (Ross 2004) Others also believe that their use hasnegative repercussions, but attribute this impact to flaws in the actors’ character Inthis view, PMSCs/mercenaries are war-lovers, display a disdain for human life, andtherefore increase violence (Ballesteros 2000; Rasor and Bauman 2007) Finally, athird opinion claims that only the old breed of mercenaries creates the problems,and not modern PMSCs On the contrary, according to these authors, the impact ofthe latter on the dynamic of civil war is rather positive As commercial actorsconcerned with their reputation, they do not take advantage of the client and have

an incentive to shorten wars and to behave professionally with regard to humanrights (Shearer 1998; Zarate 1998)

In order to sort out the contradicting claims in the literature and to close theresearch gap, this article investigates how mercenary and PMSC involvement

influences the severity of civil war, i.e whether the presence of these actors increases

or decreases the severity of civil war

The article proceeds in the following steps: In the first section, the differentperspectives of mercenary impact on civil war are presented, and hypotheses areformulated It is noteworthy that mercenaries are not homogeneous actors Thecurrent debate revolves around ad-hoc mercenary groups and PMSCs It is widelyagreed in the literature that PMSCs are a ‘transformation’ or ‘evolution’ of the oldmercenary phenomenon (Percy 2007:7; Singer 2003:45) At the same time there is

an agreement that the two actors are different to some degree, yet it is debatedwhether the differences amount to a difference in kind, i.e whether PMSCs are non-mercenary actors The article does not take sides on this issue, but rather includesboth perspectives in the analysis The first hypothesis does treat both actors assimilar, while the second hypothesis differentiates between the two

In the second section, additional variables that are commonly associated withthe severity of civil wars are identified These variables are: regime type, externalintervention, quality of the armed forces, rebel strength, and ethnic and religious

polarization The third section of the paper discusses in more detail the dataset, theoperationalization of mercenary actors, and the control variables

The final section discusses the results The analysis shows that the presence

of PMSCs/mercenaries is correlated with an increase in civil war severity However,

it was not possible to determine whether there is a difference between the twoactors The presence of natural resources and PMSCs/mercenaries is correlated with

an increase in civil war severity in comparison to those conflicts where neither ofthese factors were present A surprising result was that the presence of naturalresources and PMSCs/mercenaries is correlated with a lower civil war severity thanthose cases where either natural resources or PMSCs/mercenaries have beenpresent

ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF MERCENARIES

Apart from romanticized movies, such as the 1978 film The Wild Geese, mercenaries

are a hard sell today The opponents of mercenarism and of PMSCs reference NiccolòMachiavelli frequently (Carmola 2010: chapter 1) The Italian philosophercomplained about the lack of a proper motivation, such as nationalism, and claimedthat mercenaries were mainly driven by greed (Machiavelli and Mansfield 1985:48).This predisposition renders mercenaries to be unreliable and ineffective in the fight,

as they have no stake in the conflict, and monetary reward has little meaningwithout a plausible prospect that it can be collected (Lynch and Walsh 2000:143-146) Moreover, James Taulbee raises the question of how civilized a lover of warsuch as a mercenary can be (Taulbee 1998:154) Not very, many would probablyrespond Mercenaries are deemed to have perpetrated massacres, executions,looting, and rape, and spread instability in the conflicts they have been involved in(Burchett and Roebuck 1977:8; Sapone 1999:3).1

However, the lack of a proper motivation is more a normative judgment than

an explanation for mercenary transgressions in war For instance, military personnelsign up for the service for similar reasons, out of adventurism or hope for a stable

1 Similar allegations have been raised against employees of PMSCs (Aning et al 2008:32; Human Rights First 2008:3-4).

income (Pung et al 2008) A good part of the criticism of mercenarism is rather due

to the fact that private forces are less constrained in their use of force than regularforces (Percy 2007:57) Over time, the international community has built sets ofnorms that shape modern warfare, such as the humanitarian law or the nucleartaboo (Farrell 2005) The overarching aim of these regulations is to restrict the use

of force and limit the repercussions of warfare Moreover, military institutionsdevelop routines that help to control and coordinate the large number of peopleworking within the organization (Posen 1984:44) These routines help to implementinternational norms, comprise ethical codes, and rules of engagement (Kier1995:66) In short, a soldier’s use of force takes place within the constraints ofaccepted rules of warfare and the limitations of the military organization s/he isintegrated in Any transgressions and wrongdoings can be sanctioned by the homestate or the military justice system

Against the backdrop of constrained use of force by regular forces, JuanZarate points out that the greatest concern with private actors is that they operateoutside these controls: “The international community’s fear of mercenaries lies inthat they are wholly independent from any constraints built into the nation statesystem The element of accountability … underlies the international antipathy formercenary activity” (Zarate 1998:122) Hence, mercenaries (including PMSCs) areexpected to have the following effect on civil wars:

PMSC/ mercenary presence is expected to increase civil war severity (Hypothesis 1).

However, the literature fiercely debates how different PMSCs are from mercenaries.While some have considered PMSCs as “new modalities of mercenaries” (GeneralAssembly 2007:69), “mercenary organizations” (Harding 1997:87), or “half-mercenary, half service sector offshoot” (Spear 2006:5), others have deemed this toosimplistic and consider them professional military service providers (Donald2006:1-6; Shearer 1998:22) It is noteworthy that PMSCs comprise a wide range ofactors, including unarmed personnel providing logistic, consultancy and trainingservices, as well as armed personnel delivering security or even combat services to

the customer (Singer 2003: chapter 6) As mercenarism is associated withparticipation in combat, the controversy is only about those PMSCs providing armedsecurity and combat services (Baker 2011:5-6)

Those who consider the mercenary definition not being applicable to PMSCsemphasize the qualitative differences between the former and the latter.Mercenaries form a temporary fighting force for a particular task with no permanentorganizational structure or long-term interest beyond the mission at hand (Kinsey2006: chapter 1; Singer 2003:44-47) Basically they are ad-hoc groups formed fromloose networks of individuals PMSCs, in contrast, are permanent legal structures.Moreover, the corporation has a long-term interest in establishing itself on themarket and generating profit (Dunigan 2011:17-19; Krahmann 2010:7)

However, others have considered PMSCs and mercenaries to be similaractors First, they object that a corporate organizational structure, long-termbusiness interest or legal registration and state licensing requirements dodifferentiate PMSCs from mercenaries (Adams 1999; Musah and Fayemi 2000:22-25; Spear 2006:16-19) According to Uwe Steinhoff this is not to say that there are

no differences, but that “these differences remain in the category of mercenaries”(Steinhoff 2008:24-26) Secondly, proponents of the ‘similarity argument’ do notfocus the on differences between PMSC and mercenaries, but on those betweenthese two actors and regular soldiers For instance, one of the key arguments is thatmercenaries are fighters lacking close and immediate control by a legitimateauthority This is equally true for the old mercenary breed and the newer PMSCphenomenon (Baker 2011:33 ;Percy 2003) Whether this makes the mercenary labelstick to PMSCs does not need to be decided here

The crucial difference between PMSCs and ad-hoc mercenaries is theirorganizational structure, which influences the actor’s integration in the regulatorystructure restricting the use of force (Percy 2007:64) The argument is the looser theorganizational form, the less integrated and restrained the actor is by the regulatorystructure Due to their loose structure, ad-hoc mercenary groups are considered to

be less integrated and hence they are expected to be dangerous, using excessiveforce and violating human rights PMSCs, in contrast, are deemed to be more

integrated in the control structure, and hence they are expected to employ force in arestrained manner (Krahmann 2010:6 ;Zarate 1998:115) The reasoning for theseclaims is discussed in the following paragraphs

The legal constitution of PMSCs makes control of their actions easier andprosecution more likely than in the case of ad-hoc mercenary groups First,corporations are required to meet legal requirements, such as registration criteria orexport licensing (Zarate 1998:148) This entails a degree of transparency, as firmshave to give information about their structure, employees, and contracts to thestate’s administration Moreover, licensing procedures give the home state somecontrol over the actions of the firm If a firm does not meet the necessary standards

or breaks laws by exporting services, licenses can be suspended, denied orwithdrawn Similar tools are not available with regard to ad-hoc mercenary groups.Due to their lack of corporate structure, they are not required to providedocumentation for their actions and hence operate largely under theadministration’s radar

Also, theoretically both members of ad-hoc mercenary groups and employees

of PMSCs can be held accountable for war crimes (Doswald-Beck 2007:134).However, as PMSCs operate in the open, i.e., responsibilities, contractual ties, andperpetrators are more likely to be known, it is easier for the prosecution toinvestigate Admittedly, in some cases the reach of the regulations is still contested,but in international humanitarian law, precedents have been set where companies,even PMSCs, have already been held accountable (Dickinson 2011:45) In short, due

to the fact that PMSCs have a permanent legal structure they are more likely to beheld accountable than ad-hoc mercenary groups, and hence they are less likely totransgress the norms governing the use of force

Another more informal regulatory mechanism is also widely discussed in theliterature: market reputation Deborah Avant has emphasized that a transnationalmarket for force has formed alongside the state system (Avant 2005:3) This is not tosay that ad-hoc mercenary groups did not sell their services on a market, howeverthe main difference is that the current market is highly corporatized (Singer2003:40) As a consequence, the dynamics of the market change In a competitive

market, customers seek to gather information on the agents in order to determinewho would best serve the task at hand The reputation of an agent is an importantindicator in this regard (Brauer 2008; Brooks 2000:131) Agents therefore have astrong incentive to satisfy the customer in order to maintain a good marketreputation and increase the likelihood of future business For the mechanism tofunction properly a permanent corporate structure is required that builds areputation and to which successes and wrongdoings can be attributed Hence,PMSCs are subject to the reputation mechanism (Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski2012:7) A company that is perceived to have committed crimes, violatedinternational law or provided substandard services will suffer a bad reputation andnot be successful on the market (Percy 2006:53) If the structure is easily dissolved,however, and the actors can reappear in another shape, the mechanism is renderedineffective Hence, ad-hoc mercenary groups do not have to worry too much aboutthe consequences of their actions on their long-term profit Their network formationbypassed the reputation mechanism of markets

In sum, due to their different mechanisms, PMSCs are assumed to be moreintegrated in the normative structure governing the use of force and therefore to besimilarly constrained in their actions as state actors Ad-hoc mercenary groups areconsidered to be not integrated in the normative structure, nor constrained in theirbehavior Hence, the following impact on civil wars can be expected:

Ad-hoc mercenary groups can be expected to increase civil war severity in general, while PMSCs can be expected to not aggravate the situation (Hypothesis 2).

Some authors go even further and tentatively suggest that PMSCs might evenimprove the situation as they increase the likelihood that international norms areadhered to (Avant 2005:61)

Mercenaries and natural resources

According to David Collier and Anke Hoeffler, the presence of primary commoditiesincreases the risk of civil war (Collier 2000) However, natural resources may have

an effect not only on the onset, but also on the severity of civil wars In order toextract resources, such as gemstones, infrastructure and equipment are needed Assuch equipment can be easily damaged or destroyed, the conflict parties arerequired to take control of and stabilize the region if they want to extract gas and oil

In any case, parties are aware of the importance of the resource-rich areas for thewar effort This awareness can be expected to increase the intensity as onlysuccessful fighting secures revenues from this area (Lujala 2009:54-55)

In general it is assumed that if PMSCs/mercenaries are inserted into resourceconflicts they fuel the intensity of the hostilities even further, as they see anopportunity to loot (Sapone 1999:14; Fredland 2004:211).2 In order to carry out thelooting they may be reckless against the civilian populations or pay little attention tothe rules of warfare In addition, if the revenue from the resource-rich areasguarantees the payment of the hired PMSCs/mercenaries, they might employextremely harsh methods to repress any resistance (Ross 2004:58-59) Hypothesis 3therefore states:

The combination of natural resources and PMSCs/mercenaries is expected to increase the severity of civil wars (Hypothesis 3).

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONFLICT

The determinants of civil war severity are complex, and this article cannot provide acomprehensive account of all factors The focus of the analysis will be on the impact

of mercenary involvement in civil war This section specifies the control variables,i.e., the impact of other factors that influence the severity of hostilities Fourvariables have been incorporated into the analysis: regime type, external

2 The hypothesis does not differentiate between PMSCs and mercenaries as the literature discusses similar modes of interaction between natural resources and either of these actors.

intervention, quality of the armed forces and strength of rebel forces, and ethnic andreligious polarization

Regime type: Although there are numerous regime types, this investigation

differentiates only between democracies and non-democracies It is widelyacknowledged that the degree to which a country displays the characteristics of ademocracy has an influence on the onset of civil wars (Hegre et al 2001; Hendersonand Singer 2000) However, the regime type can have an impact on civil war severity

as well The rationalist approach argues that democratic leaders are elected whichputs them under constant pressure to generate benefits for their winning coalition,i.e., the proportion of the population that is required to ensure reelection Althoughwinning coalitions exist in any system, the size of the coalition is very broad indemocracies This makes it more difficult to generate benefits for a large group,while shifting costs to other parts of society at the same time (Mattes and Morgan2004) Autocratic leaders rely on a small circle only and can more easily shift costsand distribute benefits (Filson and Werner 2004:303; Mattes and Morgan 2004).Since the costs of war are not fixed, but accumulate over time, it becomes moredifficult to deflect costs Democracies hence try to avoid bloodshed and try to endwars as quickly as possible (Bennett and Stam 1996)

Another – normative – perspective on democracies suggests that they aremore restrained in their actions during wars In contrast to non-democracies, wherethe government can suppress and even eliminate opposition, the political process indemocracies is designed to generate compromise between the parties and respectshuman rights The normative socialization goes even beyond individual stateborders and is applied in foreign policy (Maoz and Russett 1993:625) In essence,both approaches suggest that democratic regimes are less likely to resort toexcessive use of force in internal conflicts (Harff 2003; Valentino et al 2004)

External intervention: James Fearon suggests that parties in a civil war are

faced with a dilemma: even if a peaceful solution exists that both opponents canagree on, the parties lack any guarantee that the other will comply with thesettlement Without a neutral party intervening and guaranteeing that each party

adheres to its commitment, hostilities and distrust prevail (Fearon 1995:405-406;Walter 1997:360) Another option for external interference in a civil war is toabandon the idea of the neutral facilitator and to intervene on behalf of one party.Edward Luttwak favors this option and argues that the international communityshould even intervene on behalf of the strong to defeat the weak more decisively andquickly (Luttwak 1999:38) However, external intervention may also increase theseverity of the fighting The additional capabilities provided by the intervener can –and are meant to – tip the internal balance of power (Krain 2005:369) New militarytactics, sophisticated weaponry, or simply the additional manpower might enableone party to strike harder and reach areas that have not been fought over before As

a consequence, fighting can be expected to become more bloody and intense In sum,external assistance suggests an increase in the severity of hostilities (Lacina2006:281)

Quality of the armed forces and strength of the rebels: The importance of the

quality of military forces for success in a military engagement has been widelyacknowledged (Hanson 2001; Van Creveld 2007) The reason is simple andstraightforward: skilled, well-structured, and well-equipped forces are moreeffective and hence more likely to achieve their military goals (Brooks 2007).However, the quality of the military directly influences not only the outcome, butalso the severity of civil war (Keen 1998:28) Ill-disciplined, rag-tag forces are oftenmuch more violent than disciplined, well-trained forces Mueller argues that suchforces often consist of little more than armed thugs, who are much more willing thanordinary soldiers to harass, murder, and take whatever loot they can find

In addition, if atrocities are committed, a cycle of revenge is set in motionwhen the brutalized fight back – often with equally ill-disciplined forces (Mueller2000:47-56) Although at times ill-disciplined troops might turn into a noteworthyfighting force, and a well-disciplined army resort to overly aggressive behavior andatrocities, a high-quality fighting force is in general more likely to fight in adisciplined manner and not to commit crimes (Mueller 2003:510) In short, high-quality forces are less likely to increase the severity of a civil war

Ethnic fragmentation: Ethnic fragmentation of a society is widely used in the

civil war literature to explain civil war onset However, many consider this factoralso to be influential on civil war severity (Fearon 2004; Lacina 2006) First, ChaimKaufmann argues that ethnic conflicts are different from those fought overideological issues The crucial distinction is that ideological affiliations are flexibleand can change, while ethnic affiliation is fixed As a consequence, ideologicalconflicts can be solved more easily by economic, political, and social reformsaddressing the respective grievances (Kaufmann 1996:140-141).Ethnic conflicts, in contrast, are characterized by a deep-rooted antipathybetween the groups that is hard to change and which even renders cohabitation inthe same territory often impossible (Kaldor 1999) Therefore, each side is willing tobear high costs to defeat the opponent and to achieve complete control of theterritory (Kaufmann 1996:139) James Fearon’s “sons of soil” mechanism is aversion of this problem Accordingly, conflict erupts if a dominant ethnic groupstarts to migrate into less populated regions, often with the support of statedevelopment projects The inhabitants of the periphery, usually an ethnic minority(sons of the soil), then start an insurgency against the migrants and the statebacking them (Fearon 2004:283).

Second, groups in ethnic conflicts face an intense security dilemma If thestate has broken down as a neutral institution to regulate conflicts, the variousgroups have to rely on themselves for protection However, the arming andmobilization of one group, even for self-defense, poses a threat to the security ofothers The severity of ethnic dilemmas increases even further if the settlements ofthe groups are mixed, as this renders both sides vulnerable to attacks by theopponent’s forces (Posen 1993:28,32) Such vulnerability, combined with theanxiety that the other group will prevail militarily and use this position to expel oreven exterminate one’s own group, leads to more severe and determined fighting Inshort, all mechanisms suggest that ethnic and religious conflicts are zero-sumsituations, where compromise is unlikely, and the stakes are high for all parties

In this section, the operationalization of the variables is discussed and the datasources are introduced The first challenge of civil war research is to define thesubject It has become very common to integrate casualty thresholds in thedefinition of civil wars Unfortunately, there is no agreement in the scientificcommunity on where to set the bar.3 Consequentially, as different surveys usevarious thresholds, the assessment of violence in the world depends to a greatextent on the dataset one is using (Sven Chojnacki quoted in: (Bonacker andImbusch 2005:115) This article does not intend to solve the debate or fathom itsdepths With regard to the data on civil wars, this investigation draws on BethanyLacina’s dataset (Lacina 2006) which is based on the conflict data of the PeaceResearch Institute in Oslo.4 Lacina’s dataset provides detailed data on casualties as ithas already been used to investigate questions of civil war severity Furthermore, shefactors in a margin for counting errors and includes civil violence with at least 900killed.5

The dependent variable “civil war severity” was until recently oftenconsidered to be merely a byproduct of hostilities However, this is not a randomphenomenon, but the result of the conditions under which war takes place (Hegerand Salehyan 2007:386) Severity refers to the death toll, i.e., all casualties – civilian

or military – that result directly from hostilities The risk with such a criterion is that

it might obfuscate the actual humanitarian cost of war, since those who die fromwar-related hardships, such as famines, are not counted Since the matter of interesthere is the severity of civil war hostilities, it seems to be reasonable to take onlythose casualties into consideration that are directly caused by combat (Lacina2006:278) In total, the investigation includes 110 civil wars in the period from 1946

3 An important definition of civil war is Fearon and Laitin’s, who set the bar at 1,000 casualties (Fearon and Laitin 2003:5)

based on the Correlates of War project database (http://www.correlatesofwar.org/), data on natural resources drawn from Paivi Lujala’s article “Deadly Combat and Natural Resources” (Lujala 2009), data on ethnic and religious polarization, and military quality is drawn from (Lacina 2006), and data

on rebel strength was obtained from (Cunningham, et al 2009).

5 Indeed, this is not systematically different from the 1,000-casualty threshold However, if one accepts the 1,000 threshold, the inclusion of an error margin is helpful to avoid the influence of minor counting errors on the result

to 2002 However, due to missing data and the removal of extremely influentialcases, only 106 cases are included in the “severity models”.6 The dependent variable

“battle deaths” was logged to avoid heteroscedasticity.7

The data on the variable of interest in this investigation “mercenary presence

or absence” are drawn from Chojnacki et al (Chojnacki, et al 2009) The authorsprovide a list that includes information on the presence of mercenaries in civil warsfrom 1946 to 2002 However, as already indicted, there is a fierce debate in theliterature on what constitutes a mercenary (Carmola 2010: chapter 1; Steinhoff2008) Chojnacki et al consider mercenaries as fighters who participate inhostilities for pecuniary compensation, and who are neither nationals of a party tothe conflict nor members of the armed forces (Chojnacki, et al 2009:4-6; Percy2007:58-64) This definition excludes all actors from the dataset who are providinglogistics, training or other non-combat services since they are not participating incombat Furthermore, local fighters, militias and warlords are not included as theyhold the nationality of a party to the conflict Equally excluded are foreigners whoserve in the armed forces of a party to the conflict, e.g members of the Frenchforeign legion (Chojnacki, et al 2009:5-6) Finally, the dataset includes all actors,who participate in the fighting and who do not fall into one of the excludedcategories This comprises employees of PMSCs, third country nationals, andindividual fighters

In total, PMSCs/mercenaries were present in 35 of the 114 civil warsincluded in this study (Table 1) It might be suspected that mercenaries are aphenomenon of the Cold War, wherein the superpowers had an interest to use suchactors for covert operations Indeed, during the Cold War mercenaries participated

in 27% of all civil wars (in 21 out of 77) However, after the Cold War ended, thepresence of PMSCs/mercenaries in civil wars increased slightly They were present

in 38% of all civil wars (in 14 of the 38) that took place between 1989 and 2002

6 Four cases were not included (Afghanistan 1978-2000, Chinese Civil War 1946-1949, Greek Civil War 1946-1949, Vietnam War 1955-1975) All cases were extreme outliers due to the graphical tests and showed very large residuals.

7 The Breusch Pagan test showed a high Chi 2 value: 219.37 and Prob > Chi 2 : 0.00, which confirmed heteroscedasticity After logging the dependent variable, the problem disappeared in the graphical diagnostics as well as in the Breusch Pagan test.

Moreover, one might suggest that mercenaries are only present in aparticular type of conflict For instance, it is often argued in the literature thatPMSCs/mercenaries are merely present in wars of self-determination, used as a tool

of oppression to subdue independent movements (Musah and Fayemi 2000:5-6).However, in total they were only involved in 33% of the secessionist wars present.This does not seem to be a disproportionate engagement in a particular type ofconflict as they also participated in 25% of the non-secessionist wars Most notably,although it is often emphasized in the literature that mercenaries are an Africanproblem, this is by far not the only continent where these actors are active Indeed,

in total most of the conflicts with mercenary presence took place in Africa (thirteencases) However, with regard to the ratio of total amount of conflicts to conflict withmercenary presence, the most active region was Asia (14:10) Finally,PMSCs/mercenaries were active in five conflicts in South America, in five Europeanconflicts, and two conflicts in the Middle East

Table 1: Mercenary presence in civil wars 1950-2002

Conflicts Total Conflicts with Mercenaries